The Aiguilles d’Arves () is a
mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...
in the
Arves massif in the
French Alps
The French Alps are the portions of the Alps mountain range that stand within France, located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions. While some of the ranges of the French Alps are entirely in France, others, such a ...
. The mountain, comprising three separate peaks (in French ''Aiguille''), is the highest point of the massif, and is located in the
department of
Savoie
Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè'' or ''Savouè-d'Avâl''; English: ''Savoy'' ) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Southeastern France. Located in the French Alps, its prefecture is Chambéry. In 2019, Savoie had a population o ...
.
Geography
The summits that make up the Aiguilles d'Arves are described in the following table.
For reasons apparent from the picture, ''Aiguille Septentrionale'' is also called the ''Tête de Chat'' (Cat Head).
Ascents
The central peak of the ''Aiguilles d’Arves'' was first climbed by the brothers Pierre Alexis and Benoît Nicolas Magnin, from nearby
Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, on 2 September 1839. As evidence they built a cairn and left two Sardinian coins under a rock on the summit.
[Benoît Nicolas Magnin]
The Ascent of the Central Aiguille d'Arves
The Alpine Journal, Volume 18, 1895
The southern summit was first climbed by the Swiss mountain guides
Christian and Ulrich Almer and their American client,
W. A. B. Coolidge from New York. During the 1870s and 1880s, Coolidge claimed a number of
first ascent
In mountaineering and climbing, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in climbing guidebook, guide books), is the first successful documented climb to the top of a mountain or the top of a particular climbing route. Early 20th-century mountaineers a ...
s and worked extensively in the Dauphiné Alps. Earlier, the same party had climbed ''L’Auguille Centrale'' in 1874. On the summit, they found the cairn built by the Magnin brothers, but ascribed it to "a legendary
chamois
The chamois (; ) (''Rupicapra rupicapra'') or Alpine chamois is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope native to the mountains in Southern Europe, from the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apennines, the Dinarides, the Tatra Mountains, Tatra to the Carpa ...
hunter". The day after their ascent of ''L’Aiguille Meridionale'' in 1878, Benoît Magnin informed them about his ascent 39 years prior.
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References
{{reflist
External links
Aiguilles d’Arves Refuge
Alpine three-thousanders
Mountains of the Alps
Mountains of Savoie